FI Morning Grain Comments 02/17/23

PDF attached

 

Good
morning.

 

US
markets are closed Monday during the day, resuming 7 pm CT Monday evening. The CFTC Commitment of Traders report will be released Feb 24, starting with positions as of January 31. They plan to catch up by early March. WTI crude oil is down $2.35, USD higher
by 50 points, and US equities lower. CBOT soybeans are higher from strength in soybean meal. Soybean oil is lower from a large decline in WTI crude oil. Palm oil closed at their highest level in six weeks. Offshore values were leading SBO lower by about 87
points this morning (344 higher for the week to date) and meal $0.90 short ton higher ($0.70 higher for the week). CBOT corn futures are mixed on lack of direction. The higher USD is pressuring Chicago wheat, but higher protein wheat is stronger from Black
Sea shipping concerns. Negotiations on the Black Sea export corridor deal begin in a week.

 

Estimate
of fund positions

 

 

Weather

The
morning weather forecast is unchanged for the US and Brazil and slightly worse for Argentina. Rain will fall across Argentina’s BA crop area today before turning drier through Tuesday. Brazil’s northern RGDS will see rain over the short term. Other growing
areas will see rain one time or another over the next several days. The US Great Plains and Midwest will be dry through the weekend.

 

 

 

World
Weather, INC.

WORLD
WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS FOR FEBRUARY 17, 2023

• Unusually
  cool temperatures occurred in southwestern Argentina this morning with extreme lows of 37 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit or +2 to +8C
• Readings
  were not cold enough for a long enough period of time to induce any threat of damage, although crop growth rates were slowed
• Argentina
  is advertised to be dry through Wednesday of next week
• Showers
  and thunderstorms that develop late next week are unlikely to soak the ground, but any moisture would be welcome
• The
  precipitation will be greatest in the north where some relief from dryness is likely; however, southern parts of the nation are unlikely to get significant moisture through the first day in March
• No
  change in Brazil’s forecast was noted overnight
• A
  disruption to farming activity is likely in Mato Grosso this weekend and next week for a little while and then drier weather will resume again late this month and in early March
• Brazil’s
  wettest weather is still expected in Parana, Sao Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and southern Minas Gerais where delays in harvesting are most likely
• U.S.
  hard red wheat areas received significant snow Wednesday into Thursday morning with most of the snow occurring during the day Thursday falling from central and southwestern Iowa to northern and central Lower Michigan
• Total
  accumulations from Colorado to Michigan the past two days ranged from 4 to 11 inches and moisture from the eventual melting snow will lift topsoil moisture in a part of the central Plains
• Snow
  will fall in the northern U.S. Plains and upper Midwest during the middle part of next week slowing travel, but providing some beneficial moisture when the snow melts
• Florida,
  southern Georgia and South Carolina will experience net drying over the next 10-12 days while precipitation is much more abundant in the Tennessee River Basin and the immediate Ohio River Valley
• Western
  Europe will experience a boost in precipitation next week improving topsoil moisture for France, northern Spain and northern Portugal as well as across much of the North and Baltic Sea regions
• Southeastern
  Europe will be driest over the next ten days
• North
  Africa precipitation will be restricted over the next week except in Morocco where some welcome rain is likely
• No
  change in production potential is expected, though
• Waves
  of snow will move from the Baltic States and Belarus through southwestern Ukraine to the southern Ural Mountain region and northwestern Kazakhstan crop areas during the coming week to ten days
• The
  snow may slow travel and stress livestock
• India
  is still advertised to receive a restricted amount of rain during the next two weeks resulting in crop moisture stress during reproduction
• China
  weather will continue mostly good for its winter crops during the next two weeks
• Southeast
  Asia oil palm weather will be mostly good over the next two weeks
• Eastern
  Australia summer crop areas will continue to experience an erratic rainfall pattern that will not benefit very many crops for a while

Source:
World Weather and FI

 

 

 

Bloomberg
Ag calendar

Friday,
Feb. 17:

• Suspended
  until February 24 – CFTC commitments of traders

• ICE
  Futures Europe weekly commitments of traders report
• FranceAgriMer’s
  weekly crop conditions reports

 

Monday,
Feb. 20:

• MARS
  monthly report on EU crop conditions
• Malaysia’s
  Feb. 1-20 palm oil export data
• HOLIDAY:
  US, Argentina

Tuesday,
Feb. 21:

• National
  Farmers’ Union Conference, Birmingham, UK, day 1
• Grain
  Forum Dubai 2023, day 1
• New
  Zealand global dairy trade auction
• USDA
  export inspections – corn, soybeans, wheat, 11am
• EU
  weekly grain, oilseed import and export data
• HOLIDAY:
  Argentina, Bangladesh

Wednesday,
Feb. 22:

• National
  Farmers’ Union Conference, Birmingham, day 2
• Grain
  Forum Dubai 2023, day 2
• USDA
  total milk production, 3pm
• US
  poultry slaughter, 3pm

Thursday,
Feb. 23:

• USDA’s
  acreage outlook for corn, soy, wheat and cotton
• The
  USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum, Arlington, day 1
• EIA
  weekly US ethanol inventories, production, 10:30am
• Port
  of Rouen data on French grain exports
• Sugar
  production and cane crush data from Brazil’s Unica (tentative)
• USDA
  red meat production, 3pm
• HOLIDAY:
  Russia

Friday,
Feb. 24:

• USDA’s
  full outlook for corn, soy, wheat and cotton

• The
  USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum, Arlington, day 2
• USDA
  weekly net-export sales for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, pork and beef, 8:30am
• ICE
  Futures Europe weekly commitments of traders report
• CFTC
  commitments of traders weekly report on positions for various US futures and options, 3:30pm
• FranceAgriMer’s
  weekly crop conditions reports
• US
  cattle on feed, 3pm
• US
  cold storage data for beef, pork and poultry, 3pm

Source:
Bloomberg and FI

 

 

 

CFTC
Commitment of Traders report delayed until Feb 24; catch up by mid-March

February
16, 2023

Washington,
D.C. — Staff of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Divisions of Clearing and Risk, Market Participants, Data, and Market Oversight today released the following statement to update the public on reporting delays due to the cyber-related incident at ION
Cleared Derivatives (a subsidiary of ION Markets), a third-party service provider of cleared derivatives order management, order execution, trading, and trade processing:

“Following
the ION cyber-related incident, reporting firms are continuing to experience some issues submitting timely and accurate data to the CFTC. As a result, the weekly Commitments of Traders (CoT) report that normally would have been published on Friday, February
17, will be postponed.

“CFTC
staff intends to resume publishing the CoT report as early as Friday, February 24, 2023. Staff will begin with the CoT report that was originally scheduled to be published on Friday, February 3, 2023. Thereafter, staff intends to sequentially issue the missed
CoT reports in an expedited manner, subject to reporting firms submitting accurate and complete data.  Staff anticipates that, pending the timely, accurate and complete submission of backlogged data by reporting firms to the CFTC, these missed CoT reports
will be published by mid-March.  After that, CoT report publication will resume its usual weekly schedule.”

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8662-23

 

 

EPA
RIN Generation

U.S.
GENERATED 522
MLN BIODIESEL (D4) BLENDING CREDITS IN JANUARY, VS 585 MLN IN DECEMBER -EPA

U.S.
GENERATED 1.22 BLN ETHANOL (D6) BLENDING CREDITS IN JANUARY, VS 1.21 BLN IN DECEMBER -EPA

 

Year
Ago

U.S.
GENERATED 355
MLN BIODIESEL (D4) BLENDING CREDITS IN JANUARY, VS 584 MLN IN DECEMBER -EPA

U.S.
GENERATED 1.21 BLN ETHANOL (D6) BLENDING CREDITS IN JANUARY, VS 1.30 BLN IN DECEMBER -EPA

 

Macros

US
Import Price Index (M/M) Jan: -0.2% (est -0.1%; prev 0.4%)

US
Export Price Index (M/M) Jan: 0.8% (est -0.2%; prev -2.6%)

US
Import Price Index (Y/Y) Jan: 0.8% (est 1.4%; prev 3.5%)

US
Export Price Index (Y/Y) Jan: 2.3% (est 2.8%; prev 5.0%)

Canadian
Industrial Product Price (M/M) Jan: 0.4% (est -0.1%; prev -1.1%)

Canadian
Int’l Securities Transactions Dec: C$21.22B (prev C$12.76B)

Canadian
Raw Materials Price Index (M/M) Jan: -0.1% (est -0.2%; prev -3.1%)

 

 

Corn

·        
CBOT corn futures
are slightly higher for March and May positions and moderately lower back months.  Lack of direction is seen today, but don’t discount long liquidation ahead of the US long holiday weekend. March corn is so far down 0.4% for the week.

·        
CBOT ag trading resumes for Monday evening due to President’s Day.

·        
Bird flu vaccines might be adopted by several more countries after cases skyrocketed across the globe since mid-December. 

·        
Next week (Feb 24) USDA NASS will issue 2023-24 US S&D and selected world (exports, etc.) projections. This report may have some impact on new-crop futures prices.
https://www.usda.gov/oce/ag-outlook-forum

·        
Guatemala reported a H5N1 bird flu outbreak in wild birds.

·        
Both Argentina corn and soybean condition slipped from the previous week. Excellent for corn dropped from 20 to 11 percent.

 

 

Export
developments.

• South
  Korea’s NOFI group seeks 138,000 tons of corn, optional origin, for June shipment.
  

 

Soybeans

·        
CBOT soybeans are
higher from strength in soybean meal. Soybean oil is lower from a large decline in WTI crude oil and profit taking. Palm oil closed at their highest level in six weeks. Note palm futures gapped higher for the third consecutive day.

·        
Argentina saw cold temperatures across the southern growing areas but so far no frosts, from what we are hearing, occurred. 

·        
USDA’s annual Outlook Forum will start Thursday and trade estimates on supply and ending stocks for the US should be out later today.

·        
Malaysia May position palm futures were up 62 ringgit to 4,131 and May cash was up $7.50/ton to $972.50/ton. 

·        
China soybeans increased 0.3%, meal up 0.1%, SBO up 2.0% and palm oil futures up 2.6%.

·        
Nearby Rotterdam vegetable oils were
lower by about 5-10 euros from this time yesterday morning
and meal 5.50-6.00 euros higher for Argentina and mixed for Brazil.

·        
Offshore values were leading SBO lower by about 87 points this morning (344 higher for the week to date) and meal $0.90 short ton
higher
($0.70 higher for the week). 

·        
AgRural estimated the Brazil soybean crop production at 150.9 million tons versus 152.9 million tons previous. RGDS was noted as of the problem areas from persistent drought.

·        
The BA Grains exchange warned soybean production of current 38 million tons will likely be soon cut due to the heatwave over the past week. They also mentioned an upcoming cold snap in the south could hurt crops.

 

 

 

Export
Developments

·        
South Korea’s NOFI group seeks 60,000 tons of soybean meal for June arrival.

·        
China’s Sinograin seeks 10,875 tons of domestic 2022 crop year soybeans on February 17.

 

Wheat

·        
Chicago wheat futures are lower, KC higher and Mn turned lower, also like corn, on lack of direction.  Higher USD is expected to weigh on prices during the trade.

·        
Negotiations on the Black Sea export corridor deal begin in a week. The deal is set to end in March.

·        
Ukraine’s UGA sees a lower 2023 grain and oilseed harvest of 64.8 million tons from 72.7 million in 2022. They pegged wheat at 17.4 million tons and corn at 21.1 million. Exports were seen at 14 million tons for wheat and 20 million
tons for corn.

·        
China’s winter wheat crop is in good shape although some areas vary, according to a government official.

·        
French wheat crop ratings were 93% good/excellent for the week ending February 13, up from 92% previous week, down from 97% from early December and down from 95% year ago. Spring barley plantings were 58 percent, up from 26 percent
previous week and compares to 26 percent year earlier.

·        
Paris May wheat was down 1.25 euros earlier at 289.75 per ton.

 

Export
Developments.

·        
Tunisia bought 100,000 tons of soft wheat (lowest offer earlier was $337.80/ton c&f) and 75,000 tons of feed barley (lowest offer earlier $298/ton), both optional origin, for March 1-30 shipment.

·        
Jordan’s state grain buyer seeks up to 120,000 tons of optional origin milling wheat on Feb. 21 for shipment between June 1-15, June 16-30, July 1-15 and July 16-31.

·        
Jordan’s state grain buyer seeks up to 120,000 tons of optional origin feed barley on Feb. 22 for shipment between June 1-15, June 16-30, July 1-15 and July 16-31.

 

Rice/Other

·        
None reported